Sunday, August 06, 2006

second instalment of the week-long tribute to Tony Ogden, late great frontman of World of Twist: a live review from Melody Maker, April 6 1991.

WORLD OF TWISTAstoria, London

World Of Twist are fascinated by yesteryear's quaint ideas of the futuristic: Tomorrow People typography,obsolete synthesisers and man-made fabrics, astro-lamps,fiber optic ornaments and other long-lost fads - all the drekthat Victor Lewis-Smith's Buygones used to rake up. Thiskind of penchant usually leads to negligible whimsy of theHalf Man Half Biscuit ilk. But World Of Twist have somehowevaded the belittling gaze normally associated withcamp'n'kitsch, the odious trait of looking down on popculture's preposterous excesses from a position ofsuperiority. World Of Twist's music is of a different orderof magnitude: it seems to look down on you. Their songs aremonumentally absurd, ziggurats of tinsel and tack. World OfTwist are sublime (original meaning: an experience so vastand unmanageable it inspires speechless, humbled awe) andridiculous.

Let the bubblegum apocalypse unfurl... A bedlam offlanged bass, phased cymbals, dry ice and stroboscope mayhem,then it's straight into the single, "Sons Of The Stage".Those obscenely fartacious moogs spurt like spume from awhale's blowhole, then percolate in sensurround like aman-made sargasso sea. Tentacles of dralon, rayon and orlonenfold your limbs; the chorus "the floor's an ocean/And thiswave is breaking/Your head is gone and your body'sshaking/There's nothing you can do and there is nosolution/Gotta get down to the noise and confusion" isDionysian doggerel to ignite teenybop bacchanalia. Theclosing pseudo-orchestral coda is like a symphony for perspexinstruments.The folk responsible for this kitsch-adelic fantasia area motley bunch: singer Tony Ogden looks like a malnourishedBryan Ferry, a cut-price fetishist in that hideouslyinorganic, black gloss shirt; wizened techno-wizzard Adgereally does seem to come from some 1971 timewarp; guitaristGordon King looks and plays like a fugitive from Loop; blowsyJulia Vesuvius is a bird and no mistake. But this is fine:they have the blemished and decidedly mortal look that popgroups had before the video age. And World Of Twist are notrock'n'roll, not soul, not even "dance" (although theypartake of elements from all the above), but pop in thepurest and most bygone sense of the word. Their domain shouldreally be the discotheque, if such places still existed,rather than the nightclub or the rock venue. World Of Twist's"roots" are those phases when pop has been most rootless andinauthentic (glam, Northern Soul, Hawkwind), when subculturalstyles have been co-opted and travestied by bubblegummimicry. It's so right that they should cover "She's ARainbow", from that period when The Stones shamelessly jiltedauthentic R&B to hitch a ride on flower power's coat tails.And their version of MC5's "Kick Out The Jams" reveals thecounter culture anthem to be pretty much on the same level asThe Sweet's "Teenage Rampage": a gloriously vacant blast ofinsurrectionary hot air.

"The Storm" is a neon kaleidoscope, a planetarium falleninto the hands of acid freaks. One mesmering miasmic mantra(possibly entitled "On The Scene") makes me momentarilyimagine them as The Velcro Underground. "Life And Death" hasthe most epic, life-and-death bassline since "Keep FeelingFascination" (the Human League are a righteous referencepoint for WoT); future schlock-waves of glutinous moog engulf us inplastic bliss. The kitsch-quake cometh, and it'll blow youreyes.